OPINION: Is Ron Artest A Madman?

An old Dave Chappelle stand up bit holds that the reason Louis Farrakhan is able to get away with saying incredibly incendiary and racist stuff about white people to white people is because Farrakhan’s always well-dressed, well-groomed and smiling.

Along a similar line of reasoning, we might all reject a man that, while verbally making perfect sense, looked the part of the criminally insane.

Artest was a lunatic and an outcast, suspended from the league for the remainder of that season and the egg on the face of commissioner David Stern who tries so desperately to promote the NBA as a place where you can come to see the Negroes in their natural element, yet at the same time remain at a safe enough distance.

“I wanna thank my psychiatrist Dr. Santi. She really helped me to relax so much.” Say what now? You’re seeing a shrink? That’s gotta hurt your sanity points, but realizing you needed one helps as does the fact that you remembered to thank her. Look out for Dr. Santi’s sure to be forthcoming book, Relaxing Ron-Ron. Sanity Rating: 6

“It’s so difficult to play… All the commotion going on in the playoffs.” Here, Artest’s quest for cerebral serenity during a time of intense physical torment makes him seem to be almost the basketball equivalent of Rudyard Kipling. Sanity Rating: 8

“And my single’s coming out… I did a song called ‘Champion’ last June!” The shameless self-promotion of a rapping side-hustle while the eyes of the world are upon you? Brilliant. Sanity Rating: 10

Add to all this that Ron Artest showed up for the post-game press conference with his very Black wife, mother, father and children turning into, on the spot, the very thing that many of us had begun to believe was extinct: the Black athlete as African-American family man!